How She Was
by Andi Horton
Summary: As his grandchildren wreak havoc in the armoury, an old man recalls the Queen who first inspired him to fight. Post Golden Age Fic.


How She Was

O0O0O0O

_She was not the biggest fighter, nor one to raise a fuss,_

_But I remember being proud that she was one of us._

_And we might never stand together in the shield-wall side-by-side,_

_But because of her, I lift my sword with pride._

O0O0O0O

"Grandpapa! Grandpapa, stop her, she's stolen my sword! She says she's going to take my pony away and ride to the wars!"

"And I'll win 'em, too! Can't catch me! Can't catch me!"

The two whirling dervishes that had burst through the doors of the armoury ran a dangerous race, weaving in and out amongst suits of armour. It seemed impossible, watching them, to think that they would not eventually collide– and so they did. The lead figure feinted right, dodged left and skidded around one of the oldest displays in the room. The desperate pursuer made a dive and a valiant grab, missed his quarry, and smacked into the legs of the imposing metal figure. It swayed, teetered and collapsed to the ground with a resounding crash, the echoes of which lingered in the cavernous hall long after the pieces themselves had stilled.

The two little figures at once came to a dead stop, wide-eyed with horror, and in so doing proved to not be the miniature whirlwinds they had first seemed, but rather a pair of children– a fair-haired girl of six in a very stained, rumpled kirtle, and a small, stout boy a year younger than she, his little jerkin in a pitiable state indeed.

"Whoops," whispered the little boy. The girl poked him.

"_You_ knocked it over."

"Didn't!" the boy was horrified. "I didn't– well, I didn't _mean _to! And I wouldn't have, if you hadn't made me!"

"Oh! _Oh!_ Grandpapa, did you hear?" the injured party appealed to the bemused-looking older man who stood before a display of broadswords. "Dolan says I made him do that, and I didn't! _You_ saw me, didn't you?"

"Well," coughed the man, "I hardly think–"

"He saw _me_!" the boy, Dolan, retorted. "He saw me not doing that; now give me back my sword!"

"How," the girl scoffed, "can a person see somebody _not_ doing something?"

Deeming such logic unworthy of reply, little Dolan focused on the matter he considered most relevant. "Give me my sword, Lissity! _Give – it – to – me_!"

Lissity looked very ready to give it to him, but not in the approved method of surrender. On seeing the child aiming the point of the wooden weapon at her brother's midsection, Grandpapa seemed to think intervention was in order.

"Enough!" he roared, fighting back laughter. "Enough, you wretched little lion cubs– here, now," with a deftness that belied his years, he caught each child about the waist and bore them both to a low chest, used to hold such assorted weaponry as could not be assigned a proper place within the armoury. "Here; shall we be seated?"

"Don't want to be _seated_," Dolan said, his little chest puffing up, his round face getting very red indeed, "I_ want_ my–"

"Sword, yes, my boy, I know. But let's sit, first, hmm? And you can explain to me how Lissity came to be in possession of it."

"She stole it!" Dolan howled, and Lissity at once denounced her accuser in strident tones.

"I did not, either! I _won_ it, Grandpapa; I won it fairly, and Dolan is being a spoil-sport. He's such a _baby_," this was said spitefully, and possibly even warranted the sudden bodily attack from her little brother, who launched himself at her chest. Grandpapa, however, caught the boy mid-leap, and settled him tidily on the bench. Then he seated himself, drew Lissity down on his other side, and made sure the sword was out of reach of both pairs of chubby hands before he made a second attempt to determine what had happened.

"You won it, did you?" he queried, and his granddaughter nodded.

"Yes. I had only a stick, too; Mama says it's not proper for a young lady to have a sword. I told Mama I don't want to _be_ a young lady, but she said it doesn't work like that, and I mayn't have a sword. So I told Dolan to give me his, because then Papa would just give him a new one, but Dolan said no! So I told him I'd fight him for it. I used a stick, and Dolan used his sword, and I pressed my stick just _here_ on him," she pointed one dimpled finger to the joint between her shoulder and upper arm, "the way I've seen the knights do it in tourneys. And it worked! Dolan's arm gave such a funny little jump, and he dropped his sword, so I won it!"

"I–" Grandpapa blinked. "Yes. Quite. Well, Lissity, that was very . . . enterprising of you, but I'm afraid it wasn't very fair. Dolan is smaller than you, and younger, and in challenging him you ignored the code of chivalry by giving yourself an unfair advantage; you see?"

It was clear Lissity didn't care to see this if it meant she had to give Dolan back his sword, but the force of Grandpapa's will was such that she finally did surrender the little weapon to her brother's keeping once more. Hugging the sword to his chest, Dolan glowered at his sister, who fought a trembling lip to declare it wasn't fair that she wasn't allowed to fight.

"You're a girl," Dolan said smugly. "Girls can't fight."

"I fought _you_!" Lissity fired back, and Grandpapa seemed to realise that his work was not yet done, so he remained seated between the two and attempted to mediate.

"Dolan," he frowned, "that was an unfair thing to say to your sister."

"Why?" the little boy opened his eyes wide. "It's true, isn't it? Girls can't fight in the wars."

"They do not," his grandfather agreed, "but do not confuse that with inability, my boy. Women can fight, and indeed, one woman did, once– much the same way a man does. Years before your time there was a wicked enchantress ruling Narnia. She fought in armed combat for quite some time until she was defeated by the High King Peter. Of course, that was to the benefit of all; she fought well enough, but she ruled badly. Few were sorry to see the end of her."

"Is that the_ only_ woman who ever fought?" Lissity looked dismayed in spite of herself. "I don't want to be a lady like that!"

"Well," her grandfather patted the golden curls a trifle clumsily, "I don't believe you ever could be, even if you chose to. She was an enchantress, as I said; most ordinary ladies choose not to ride to ride to wars, and those who do are limited in what they can undertake." He gestured at the armoury. "For a start, this is the lightest armour the Dwarfsmiths can fashion, but it is difficult even for some men to wear. Battle is far uglier and far more challenging than simple swordplay, my dear, no matter what the ballads might say."

"So I really can't ever fight? Not even when I'm all grown up?" Lissity was crushed at this news, and her grandfather shot a quick, warning look to forestall any remarks Dolan might make; he needn't have worried, though. The little boy, seeing the genuine distress in his sister's face, slid from his perch on the bench and trotted over to stand in front of her.

"Here, Lissity," he presented her with the sword he held, "you can have this one, if you like."

Lissity, snuffling and turning rather blotchy about her nose and eyes, shook her head and buried her face in her grandfather's shirt.

"Didn't any ladies fight, _ever_?" Dolan asked of his grandparent. "Besides that enchantress, I mean. I thought that ladies sometimes went to wars."

"Some ladies did," their grandfather agreed, a slight smile crinkling his blue eyes. "A very few. They didn't fight with swords, though; it's an ugly sort of affair indeed that puts ladies in the midst of armed combat."

"How'd they fight?" Dolan wondered, asking partly in the hope that it would cheer his sister, and partly out of sheer curiosity.

"Well," the older man carefully shifted Lissity to the side, "they shot with the archers."

"Were they any good?" Dolan cradled his sword, digesting this new information. His grandfather nodded.

"Yes. Oh, yes, they were good. Some of them were excellent." A smile crinkled the lined face. "In fact, one of them was so good, she rather inspired me to be a bit better myself."

"_You_?" Dolan's eyes widened. "How?"

"Well," Grandpapa reached down and scooped Dolan up to sit on his other knee, "you may not believe this, but I wasn't always quite as fierce about things as everybody says I am! At once time I couldn't see the point of fighting like that, really."

"But– but you could win!" Lissity raised her tear-streaked face, staring in shock. "At tourneys and such, you could win! And don't ladies like it if you win at tourneys?"

Grandpapa said he may have heard tell of something of that sort.

"This lady, though, was a dab hand at tourneys herself," he explained, "and her sister was an archer to awe anyone. I would sit in the stands when I was just a wee thing, hardly any bigger than Dolan, here," he tugged the boy's nose playfully, "long before I ever thought of drawing a sword of my own. My father thought it the best place for me to take my example, you see, so you may be sure I watched everyone quite closely, and it seemed to me that they were doing things I could never hope to! It was all a bit daunting at first, but I stuck to it, just to please my father, and then . . . then, when it came to these ladies, I couldn't believe my eyes. I just couldn't look away. You will never find anyone who could shoot to rival the Queen Susan, and you will never find a livelier, fiercer archer than her sister, the Queen Lucy."

"Ooh!" Lissity's eyes widened. "Ooh, you mean Queen _Lucy_? _I've_ heard of Queen Lucy! Everybody's heard of her, and of Queen Susan, and King Edmund and King Peter . . . If _she_ fought, then _surely _Mama would let me, wouldn't she?"

"But she didn't fight," her grandfather corrected her. "She didn't fight the way you mean it, at any rate; she rode to wars, but she stood well back with the archers, where she wouldn't be a danger to her own side. A lady is far too important to her kingdom to risk herself in battle; for if ladies are lost as well as the men, who will there be left to make sure that the kingdom goes on? No, a lady in armed combat is a threat to nobody's side but her own."

"But she wasn't a threat, was she?" Both fair, tousled heads were now pillowed on the older man's shoulders, and Dolan's little thumb stole into his mouth as they listened to the tale.

"Only to those who faced her arrows," the man said quietly. "To the Narnians, she was the farthest thing from a danger you could imagine. Indeed she was a credit to her subjects and her kingdom; she was an archer anyone might admire, though you'd never have thought, to look at her, that she was such a danger to the enemy. She was just a little thing, you know; small, and merry, with hair like spun gold and a smile like the sun."

At hearing this fanciful description from their fierce old grandfather, both children burst into peals of delighted laughter, and for just a moment, under the light of their smiles, it seemed that sunshine filled the armoury once more. Grandpapa's breath caught at the sound, but when the little pair sobered at last he smiled as if he were nothing more than amused.

"Did anyone ever tell her that she _couldn't _fight?" Lissity queried, and Grandpapa said he couldn't be certain.

"I believe Father Christmas once told the Queens–"

"Father Christmas! Did he know the Queens and Kings, then?"

"Of course he did, Lissity; Father Christmas knows _everybody_, isn't that so, Grandpapa?"

"Quite so, but if I am to suffer interruptions such as these, I won't tell you any more of this."

"Sorry, Grandpapa! We're sorry, we'll be quiet!"

"Quiet as mice, we promise!"

"Hrmph. Very well, then. As I said, Father Christmas told the Queens that battles were ugly affairs when women fought, but I don't believe anybody ever forbade Queen Lucy to ride with the archers; I doubt it would have done them much good had they tried! She could be dreadfully opinionated, once she had put her mind to a thing, you see; they called her their little lioness. And I suppose once I saw she had made up her mind to make a go of the thing, I realised there was nothing to keep me from doing the same, if I chose to."

"And you chose to?"

"I did, indeed." Grandpapa shut his eyes, and for just a second he could pretend that he was no longer in the armoury, an old man with a grandchild on each knee. He was young, and strong, and a beautiful girl was laughing and leaning over him, her golden hair tumbling across his face as she challenged him to get back on his feet and pick up the sword that had been knocked from his hand.

"You can do better than that, Corin!" she had declared, and he wondered why he had been so surprised to discover that she was right.

Then a small clanking recalled him to himself, and he saw that the suit of armour the children had toppled was beginning to settle, one gauntlet rolling leisurely away from its fellow.

"Right," Prince Corin decided, easing both children to the ground, "that's enough for story-time, I think. It seems to me that we have a small mess to see to, do we not?"

The children both made faces, but fell to helping with a diligence that belied their few years. True, they dropped every piece they picked up (some of the pieces got dropped so many times, it became quite doubtful they would ever make it back into their proper place again) but Corin didn't seem to notice. If you had looked at him you might have said his mind was somewhere else entirely, even as he watched Dolan and Lissity squabbling over the right to collect the breastplate, and it's quite possible that it was. But when they had finally gotten the whole contraption more or less put together the way it had been before, he didn't even blink as the pair hit him full in the stomach, clamouring to go down to the archery butts.

"Because I want to practice!" Lissity explained, bouncing beside her grandfather and occasionally skipping a bit for good measure. "I want to practice, and practice, and then practice some more, because I want to be as good as Queen Lucy!"

"D'you think you _could_ be?" Dolan asked, doubt clearly waging war with fraternal loyalty. Lissity looked down in outraged indignation.

"I can _try_!" she huffed, and appealed to her grandfather, who was once again fighting to contain his amusement. "Don't you think I can at least try, Grandpapa?" she wondered, and Corin got his sense of humour in check long enough to nod gravely at her.

"After all," he said, finding he had to smile at a hauntingly familiar look of ferocity on the child's face, "there are worse examples to follow than that of a lioness." And, with a fierce, golden-haired, sunny-smiled child attached to each hand, he led the way down to the archery butts to get some practice in before dinner.

O0O0O0O

_So now as I gather armour, bits and pieces here and there,_

_I think about examples: how you act, and what you dare;_

'_Cause you never know who's watching, or how far the story goes,_

_And where e'er that lady is, I hope she knows._

O0O0O0O

**A.N.:** Embarrassingly lengthy author's notes, here, so feel free to skim or ignore completely! And, as of today (June 25, 2009) they are going to get even longer, because it has become necessary to repeat some explanations I have been making an awful lot lately. I know that this means the author's notes may soon rival the story itself for length, but I am hoping that making these explanations here will forestall me needing to make them to individuals _yet again_.

I've meant for quite some time to write a fic for this song (which I adore) but I have also meant for a while now to write a fic that examined the (full, _canonical_) observation made by Father Christmas when he gave Susan her bow. His actual remark was that battles are ugly affairs when women fight, but rather than give us a history lesson (you know, actually let us _learn_ something!) the filmmakers got very PC on us, which made me feel short-changed. I may not agree with all that Lewis wrote, especially as regards that particular topic, however not only am I well aware of the historical accuracy of the observation, I also choose to respect Lewis's work as just that– _his work_. It bothered me to see it so trivialised.

Father Christmas was in fact (historically) correct; Lewis would certainly have occasion to know that, given his own area of academic study. In Medieval and Renaissance society, women usually stayed behind during wars in order to keep everything –families, estates– running smoothly. Even today that's no small feat, but at that time, with poor hygiene, limited medical knowledge and no indoor plumbing, it was a battle unto itself! In addition to overseeing her own household, a lady of the manor often acted as physician, mediator and advisor to tenants in her husband's absence. While it was expected that men would sometimes fall in battle, the women at home were playing such a vital role that they could not be spared. It would be the battle to end all battles –the ugliest, direst sort of war imaginable– that called them from their crucial positions to fight in direct combat (fortunately, Narnia apparently doesn't see such a war until the end of time).

For Lucy to take a place amongst the archers doubtless seemed to Lewis to be a fitting, period-appropriate compromise; archers played an important role in the fighting but weren't on the front lines, so Lucy would have been comparatively safe. Nowadays, of course, groups like the SCA boast several female competitors and they are wonderfully skilled fighters, but within the context of Lewis's world, Lucy was as much involved in the battle as it was safe and advisable to let her be.

However, (this is 2009-me, now) some people seem to have completely missed the irony I worked so hard to incorporate here while still trying to stay true to the world Lewis created. These people have even contacted me to let me know that they missed the irony entirely (although to be fair, they didn't actually _know_ they were telling me they had missed the irony; they thought they were just telling me off). Even leaving off the rather telling fact that Corin in this piece high-handedly chooses to forget he, too, was once somebody who longed to play a part in a battle that others tried to deny him, there is also the song itself– both its lyrics, and its backstory. The song on which this piece is based is the strongest indicator of the double meaning I meant to convey, but naturally if you don't know the story behind the song, I imagine the full duality of this piece could easily be lost on a reader.

Heather Dale wrote "One of Us" as tribute to a schoolfriend who participated in armed combat in the SCA. This particular lady was evidently something of a firecracker, and if you ever have the chance to see Heather in concert, chances are she will play this song. I have made a sort of hobby of collecting live versions of the piece not only because it's a treat to listen to, but also because each time she performs it, Heather's preceding tribute to her friend is deeply moving. The fire and spirit of the lady who inspired the song are beautifully communicated in the lyrics– and so too, I think, are the fire and spirit of Lucy Pevensie. It has been frustrating to realise that people are taking this short story so very much at face value, and it got to the point where the persistent misunderstandings seemed almost disrespectful of the woman who inspired the song on which this story is based. I did not know this lady personally, but I have come to very much admire and appreciate her through listening to several different performances of "One of Us" and so I felt I couldn't go on any longer without setting things perfectly straight, delicate irony bedamned!

Thank you, though, to all those of you who _did_ understand the point I was trying to communicate while still remaining true, if only in a technical sense, to the world that Lewis gave us. I appreciate your perception all the more, now, and to all those who understood, and also to those who didn't understand but were too polite to lower yourselves to snide lecture and/or angry PMs, I urge you to visit Heather's website where you can purchase downloads of any one of three live versions of this song. I recommend all of them, either from _The Hidden Path_, _Live in __Köln_, or _Live in Montreal_; or better yet, from all three! They are all marvellous. (here ends the rambling, additional explanation of 2009-me)

Now, in addition to declaiming all rights, real or implied, to CS Lewis's _Chronicles of Narnia_, I also want to clarify that I in no way, shape or form own the song that inspired this piece and whose lyrics are featured at the open and close of the fic, Heather Dale's lovely "One of Us". I am, however, going to see her sing it tomorrow night, for whatever that may be worth!


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